Week 1 Congress – Open Section
The Week 1 Congress had around 140 entrants across the various sections including GM Keith Arkell and IM Gary Lane. Gary Lane is currently out in front on 4 points followed by fast improving teenager Remy Rushbrooke on 3.5 and Keith Arkell currently on 2.5. Here is Gary’s first round game against Ifan Rathbone-Jones.
(3) Lane, Gary W (2328) - Rathbone-Jones, Ifan (2006) [B07]
Chessable 2022 British Championship, Riviera Centre, Torquay, Unit (1.2), 08.08.2022
1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 g6 4.Be3 a6 5.Qd2 b5 6.f3 Nbd7 7.Nge2 Nb6 8.Ng3 h5 9.Bd3 h4 10.Nge2 h3 11.g4
Ifan tries a speculative sacrifice of a bishop for 2 pawns with Bxg4 looking to create problems for white’s king which is stuck in the centre for a while. Gary defends efficiently before staging a counter attack leading to checkmate.
11...Bxg4 12.fxg4 Nxg4 13.Bg5 Qd7 14.0–0 c5 15.Nd5 Nxd5 16.exd5 Rh5 17.Ng3 Rxg5 18.Qxg5 Bh6 19.Qh4 Be3+ 20.Kh1 0–0–0 21.Nf5 e6 22.Ne7+ Kc7 23.Nc6 Nxh2 24.Rxf7 Bg1 25.Qxd8+ Kb7 26.Qb8#
Rapidplay
The rapidplay took place on Wednesday 10th with a big field of around 180 players across four sections – Open, U1750, U1500 and U11.
The Open was won by GM Danny Gormally on tie break with 5 players all on 5.5 out of 7 – Danny, GM Keith Arkell, Stanley and Frankie Badacsonyi and Soham Kumar. The U1750 was won by Joseph Whelan with 6.5 out of 7, and the U1500 by Magnus Borissow. The U11 was won by Luoke Wang with 6.5 out of 7.
Simul, coaching, and a special guest
Week 1 Simul
Outside of the main events GM Keith Arkell took on around 18 players in a simul on Tuesday evening.
Coaching
BCC Coach Tom Villiers has been available to provide some expert coaching before and after junior rounds. He was also able to run the first of two group sessions on Wednesday evenings.
Special Guest
To support the coaching our sponsors Chessable arranged for a Chessable Classroom session run by Tom and WIM Luciana Morales with a guest appearance from the reigning world champion, GM/WGM Ju Wenjun, who set a puzzle for the audience to consider and took questions and answers from the audience in the commentary room.
We have a further special guest appearance from top Chinese GM Wei Yi on Friday afternoon at 4.00 pm.